Archive
Archive for the ‘Investment Commentary’ Category
Managing Your Assets in Turbulent Times
Have questions or concerns about your assets during this volatile market environment? This brochure offers context for the current situation, with informed observations on how we may help you to respond to it.
2020 Q2 Review and Outlook
The Nike Swoosh or the Square Root? The U.S. stock market’s trend in the second quarter of 2020 was a mirror image of the first quarter’s, with the S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY) gaining 20.2% vs. a 19.5% drop in 1Q. The U.S. bond market (as measured by the US Aggregate Bond ETF – AGG) gained 3.1% (matching…
2020 Q1 Review and Outlook
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” This quote (by Vladimir Lenin of all people) pretty much sums up the first quarter of 2020, as governments around the world instituted draconian methods to slow the pace of the spread of the Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19). These actions are in essence…
Coronavirus Update from the Investment Department: Our Top Priorities Right Now
We hope you are all doing ok and staying safe during this crazy time. Although we are working remotely, we are still hard at work managing your portfolios and the administrators are hard at work ensuring that you get what you need when you need it. The stock and bond markets have been on a…
Coronavirus – what this means for your investments.
In case you haven’t noticed, the news has been a little busy over the past month, with the leading headline a particularly nasty strain of Coronavirus called COVID-19, which is a cousin of the common cold virus that causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to pneumonia. We will leave it to the medical professionals to…
2019 Q3 Review and Outlook
Though full of sound and fury, the stock market signified very little in the third quarter. Despite an inverted yield curve, which is traditionally seen as a recession signal, escalating trade tensions with China and movement toward impeachment, stocks gained an unremarkable 1.7%. (link below)
2019 Q2 Review and Outlook
The second quarter of 2019 was signified by a lot of ups and downs and ended higher than where it started – which is pretty much the story of the last twelve months, only on a smaller scale. (link below)
2019 Q1 Review and Outlook
Optimism returned to the markets during the first quarter, following the broad selloff and negative sentiment that struck investors at the close of 2018. The rebound generated the highest quarterly returns in a decade, with the S&P 500 delivering a 13.7% total return year to date and 17.2% since the previous low on 12/24. Global…
2018 Q3 Review and Outlook
Two big areas of uncertainty continue to hang over U.S. equity markets and are now joined by a third. While trade policy and Federal Reserve interest rate policy remain among the largest concerns for markets, the approaching midterm elections and associated political uncertainty have started to gain investors’ attention…
2018 Q2 Review and Outlook
Fears of tariffs continued to dominate headlines even as U.S. equity markets turned positive in the quarter and year-to-date. All market capitalizations were positive, with small caps leading the way returning 7.8% in the second quarter and 7.7% so far in 2018. Large caps also gained, with the S&P 500 rising 3.4% for the quarter…